TORONTO, July 21 (UPI) — The Pan American Games, an international multi-sport competition based in Canada, confirmed last week that Kanye West would be closing out the 2015 event on July 26.
Pan Am fans, who were hoping to have a Canadian artist perform, were frustrated by the booking and started a petition to kick West out of the closing ceremony.
The petition, which started the same day Pan Am made its announcement July 15, had garnered over 50,000 signatures by Tuesday.
Kanye West. Confirmed. pic.twitter.com/MUvNQFA8Yr— TORONTO 2015 (@TO2015) July 15, 2015
“The Toronto Pan Am games have proven to be very important for Torontonians this year and have triggered a unified sense of pride in our city,” the petition read. “It would only be just to ask a proud Torontonian (or even a Canadian for that matter) in the music industry to perform, such as Drake, Walk Off The Earth, Feist, Metric, Shania Twain, deadmau5, Crystal Castles, Zeds Dead, The Weeknd, Peaches, K’naan, and many many more!”
Fans also fired off on Twitter to complain about the decision, calling it “ridiculous.”
@TO2015 @CityNews @kanyewest what a ridiculous choice. What,we could not find a CANADIAN ARTIST to showcase? this guy’s five minutes is over— Lori T (@backwardsblonde) July 15, 2015
@GOverheard @TO2015 @kanyewest HUGE mistake! Whoever thought this was a good idea should be FIRED! I will totally boycott! #NoKanyeinCanada!— Karen Peters (@Karens_Red_Pony) July 15, 2015
@TO2015 @kanyewest Kanye West. Mistake.— GOverheard (@GOverheard) July 15, 2015
Despite the outrage, tickets for the event, which takes place every four years, continued to sell.
This is not West’s first bout with rejection.
According to NME, a Canadian music magazine, earlier this year a petition was started to keep the “Stronger” artist from performing at the Glastonbury Festival in the U.K.
That petition, which declared West an “insult to music fans all over the world,” accumulated over 133,000 signatures.
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